We asked a few handy Sierra Bullets bulletsmiths: “What is your favorite ‘don’t know how you ever lived without it’ piece of reloading equipment?” Check out their answers below. We would love to hear from you too, please share your response in the comments below.

Ballistic Technician Rich Machholz answered “My universal decapping die is as handy as a pocket on a shirt.”

Ballistic Technician Philip Mahin answered “A comparator gauge to measure from the base of a case to the ogive of the bullet. This bypasses the tip of the bullet, so I can repeat the same seating depth the next time I visit a specific combination.”

Ballistic Technician Duane Siercks answered “I don’t know that you would actually call this equipment, but the item that comes to mind would be my reloading room. I had always had to squeeze everything into a corner or even an unheated shed. After we bought our current house, I built a garage and placed it so that I had a window looking down a 250 yard range. I built a dedicated room with heat and A/C. It contains my reloading bench and a shooting bench. The shooting bench lets me slide open the window and shoot down the range. It is very handy to not have to load everything up to go to the range. It also makes load development a lot simpler and efficient. I don’t know how I ever got along without it.”

Former Ballistic Technician Robert Treece answered “My homemade dental pick. I use it to check incipient case head separations. We all see the “bright ring” down close to the case head, that’s natural, but after several firings could be starting to split apart. You could start by just straightening out a paper clip; flattening one end; sharpening and turning it 90 degrees, then bend if about 1/8″ long will even fit all the way down into .204″ cases. On the other end, bend about 3/4″ to 90 degrees also, in the same direction as the pick. That will give you a handle and also “points” in the direction of the pick as you scrape along the side wall from down inside at the bottom upward along the side wall. If the pick hooks into a crevice–DON’T TRY TO SIZE THE CASE. It will pull apart in your die. (PSST you won’t like that!)”

I’ve reloaded for over 50 years and used Sierra bullets as a go to choice all that time. I also rely on L.E. Wilson tools fro specific jobs and to check cases and die adjustment. Both allow me the accuracy and safety to enjoy my shooting sports.

It’s a toss up for me between the Hornady bullet comparator and OAL gauge kit and my Quickloads software. The software saves me a ton of time developing loads, especially given all the wildcats I shoot, but the Hornady OAL measuring tools are essential for really dialing in loads for my F class stuff if I want to avoid shooting the throat out of a $400 barrel doing load development. They’re also helpful sometimes even eliminating certain components that simply aren’t going to work in a particular rifle, like if a barrel throat has excessive free bore.

On another note to the Sierra folks; do you guys provide updates as new data comes out for your ring-binder load manuals? I just bought one and it doesn’t even list the 6.5mm 150gr. Match Kings.